The Hindu finds David to defend genocidal culprits

[TamilNet, Friday, 03 August 2012, 17:44 GMT]Chennai-based Indian media The Hindu, well known for the roles it played in setting opinion against the independence of Eezham Tamils, in deliberately failing to bring in awareness even when the war was turning into one of the worst genocides of modern times, and in image-building exercises for the Rajapaksa regime after the war, was trying to absolve an array of culprits from the crimes on Thursday, by finding a respected person like Gandhiyam David at the age of 88, to naively pass the blame on the LTTE. In April this year David was cited saying that he should be buried in Vanni when Tamil Eelam becomes a reality. The Hindu desecrated him on Thursday by tagging him as “Sri Lankan Gandhian”. Mr. David should have refrained from honouring a media like The Hindu by giving an interview, commented a new generation politician in the island.

Further comments from the new generation politician follow:

According to the feature, “Reminiscences of a Sri Lankan Gandhian,” by B. Kolappan in The Hindu, Mr David has said, “large-scale human casualties could have been avoided if LTTE leader V. Prabhakaran had disbanded his force when he realised that the whole world was united in supporting Sri Lanka in the war.”

The big question is whether the LTTE has ever been given with a honourable or internationally guaranteed opportunity either to disband or to remain silent as was with cases such as the Maoists in Nepal. All know that there was no such option even when an entire nation in the diaspora took to streets, demanding the establishments to stop the war. Why was it and who were against the crisis management endeavours?

Genocidal Sri Lanka and the world of establishments in complicity, especially New Delhi wanted a ‘finish to the end’.

“The LTTE leader failed to take into consideration the changing geo-political situation and went too far in his attempt to achieve Tamil Eelam,” David was cited saying by The Hindu.

Again, the entire world knows that the LTTE's chief negotiator Anton Balasingham was prepared to explore solutions under ‘internal self-determination’. The ISGA proposals by LTTE leadership was sabotaged. Later, Rajapaksa was speaking of village-level civic bodies. The compromise with an unworthy State and dubious mediators only led to a trap. Norway’s report comes out with multiple reasons for the failed peace facilitation.

Changed geo-political situation didn’t prevent some others getting independence. If there was a special ‘geopolitics’ in South Asia that was only India and when was it or The Hindu saw righteousness in Eezham Tamils getting independence, for them to ‘change’?

Mr David was further cited: “I have no doubt that it was he [Prabhakaran] who saved Tamils. But I always had reservations about accepting him as a leader of the Tamils. There was a flaw in his personality.”

With all respect to Mr. David’s personal views, the question comes what justice has been achieved by telling this to The Hindu that has an obsession with shielding an array of personalities, establishments and social echelons, the magnitude of the flaws and crimes of which have never been seen before by Tamils in their long history, commented the politician in the island.

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In April 2012, just before his 88-birthday, talking to TamilNet from his Anna Nagar Residence, Mr David said, "I appeal to the expatriate Tamils to continue the struggle in the Gandhian way to impose the moral responsibility on the leading Governments of the West to facilitate the birth of Tamil Eelam. There is no question in my mind that Tamils have the right to live freely in their own homeland.”

How to continue a Gandhian struggle to impose the moral responsibility on the New Delhi establishment and on the media establishments like The Hindu has become a bigger challenge, not only for the diaspora but also for the people of Tamil Nadu, commented a diaspora activist